The Pain Behind Cancel, Clear, Delete

We are heading towards an extremely dangerous, violent, life-altering, democracy-ending social crisis if we don't stop cancelling the pain of others.

This blog isn't easy to write because I'm about to offer you a perspective on the world that will be uncomfortable to you. It's going to require you to fully step back from what you see happening so that you can understand what I'm offering you.

This perspective isn't new because I've offered it before. I encourage people to recognize the pain when other's are offering it. Now what if I told you that this perspective applies to everything you see happening in the world? From hate speech to bullying; it is all a reflection of pain and all of that pain needs to be acknowledged, understood, healed and respected. Now I need you to keep reading before you block me.

We live in a culture of cancel, clear, delete. When people project their pain in ways that we consider harmful we try to cancel their pain by blocking them out. Sometimes it looks like censorship and blocking or banning social media accounts. This is pain being thrown at pain. The need to cancel, clear, delete is a pain response. We are taking offense to the pain of others and deciding that their pain is not okay. By making their pain not okay we create more pain for them and ultimately for ourselves as well.

Let's be clear; I'm not condoning hate speech and bullying. Those actions are not okay, however the pain that the people that do those things feel has to be okay. If their pain had been acknowledged, accepted, and understood it may have prevented them from projecting it in ways that we consider violent, harmful or even dangerous. It is our cancel culture that has created this. If cancelling pain worked, we wouldn't be where we are in the world right now. Banning social media accounts has not stopped anything, in fact it has actually made it worse. The old method of sending it underground will no longer work. We are heading towards an extremely dangerous, violent, life-altering, democracy-ending social crisis if we don't stop cancelling the pain of others when it offends us.

The reason why people want to cancel it is because their ego gets offended by it. We're taking offense to pain. When we take offense to pain we project more pain. The need to defend is a pain response. The need to block is also a pain response. We can't handle the pain that others are projecting and so we try to shut it down. This is akin to telling a person that's going to jump off a bridge to just get over it. What's the difference between these two scenarios? One offends you and one doesn't. That's it.

The anti-Semitism and the hate that shows up in our world is pain and fear. When big names come out and express their pain through hate speech, others with similar fear and pain begin to get brave enough to do the same thing. Just like people that enjoy scuba-diving will create a Facebook group so they can talk about what they like, people that have similar fears and pain will also create groups to talk about those things. It is a normal, human response. We find people that agree with us, regardless of what the belief, opinion, fear, or pain may be and we discuss those things. The challenge with pain and fear is that it simply builds until it blows up and often the result of this is violence. However, cutting people off from society and each other does not solve the problem. It makes it worse. Isolation is not going to heal pain.

When I tell you to recognize the pain in others, it means you have to look through the hate speech, violence, and bullying to see the pain. You have to question what the pain is that causes people to do this. The next question you have to ask is how you can help folks that feel this way. What is the underlying fear? What is the underlying pain? What is happening within these people that makes them do this?

The need to cancel, clear, delete stops us from finding compassion, offering to help, and looking for useful solutions that allow us to acknowledge the pain of others. It stops us from helping people heal. It stops us from honoring the pain that others feel, even if we don't agree with how they are projecting it. We need to stop cancelling each other.

We live in a society where pain is only acceptable when we don't find it offensive. The problem is that there is always somebody to be offended by something. It doesn't matter what it is, somebody will find a reason to take offense. That means that pain is no longer acceptable. Pain has become unacceptable in our society. This is the definition of truly toxic positivity.

We are so bothered by the pain of others that we try to shut it out every chance we get. The thing that happens when we do this is that the people that are in the most pain get louder about it. There's a lot of activism in our world right now. There's a cause for almost everything. Why? Because people want their pain to be understood. They want to be seen and heard. Most of us are too busy blocking each other to understand and acknowledge the pain being expressed by those around us.

Our culture of cancel, clear, delete has forced entire groups of people into creating their own realities with their own news, their own social media, their own religions, their own ideas, beliefs, pain, and fear. It has completely fractured our world. The difference is so large that it will ultimately collapse the countries it has divided. The pain on both sides will prevent a bridge from being created before society collapses because the need to cancel, clear, delete it getting stronger. Society cannot hold together when pain is simply blocked.

Think about it. What happens when you try to stuff your pain within yourself? How does that work for you? I know what happened when I tried to stuff my own pain. I had multiple nervous breakdowns. I would blow like a top every few years because I didn't feel like it was safe to express how I was feeling. Guess what? Society works exactly the same way. Collective pain is no different than individual pain. We must make it safe for people to express their pain, both collectively and individually, even if that means we take offense to it. We have to allow it to heal it.

I am asking those of us that have done and are doing the work within ourselves to shift how we see the world. I am asking you to stop blocking the pain that you see when you get offended by it. Recognize your own ego. Recognize the ego's need to defend itself. Recognize what happens when you do that. Shift that behavior. Make a point of changing your response to what you see happening around you. Question your perspective on pain. Question your reaction to other people's pain. Question the hate you see in the world. Where does it stem from? Why is it there? Is the underlying cause something to be offended by or something to heal?

I believe the underlying cause of all the hate and fear we see in the world right now is something to be healed. It starts with not being offended by what we see. We have to open up the conversation. The only way to do that is to get out of the egoic need to defend and to actually start to listen to each other, hate speech or not.

Love to all.

Della